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Mother's anger spills out in court as son's killer sentenced

Their feud simmered in jail and ended in broad daylight on a Vanier street corner.

Devon Labelle, 24, had just come out of a drugstore on Montreal Road and was standing on the sidewalk when his killer drew a butcher’s knife in a confrontation around 3:20 p.m. on April 27, 2017.

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Kirvens Lamarre, 24, thrust the large knife into the right side of Labelle’s neck until it exited on the left. Labelle, a young father, died as passersby on the busy corner tried in vain to help him. The wound was described in court as catastrophic.

And while Labelle was bleeding out, his killer ran away as fast as he could, bloody knife in hand.

Lamarre was originally charged by Ottawa police with second-degree murder but pleaded guilty to the lesser offence of manslaughter in a deal. On Tuesday, he was sentenced to nine years in prison and, at various times, could be seen smiling in the prisoner’s box.

When Superior Court Justice Julianne Parfett afforded him a chance to address the court, he declined. Lamarre said his lawyer had said it all for him during sentencing submissions. Leo Russomanno told court his client had expressed remorse and wasn’t looking for a fight on the day in question.

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Devon Labelle, 24, known as ‘D-Loc’ was fatally stabbed April, 27, 2017, out front of a Jean Coutu pharmacy on Montreal Road.

When Annie Jasey, the slain man’s mother, seated in the front of the court gallery, heard that, she interrupted with “Really? F-ck You!” And when the defence lawyer offered his client’s “apologies” for the attack, the grieving mom shouted to her son’s killer: “Go to hell! You’re in there smiling.”

The mother didn’t read a victim-impact statement because she was told she couldn’t unless she wrote it down before hand. She didn’t want to and said her words wouldn’t change the killer’s nine-year sentence, which was a joint position by the defence and Crown prosecutor Marie Dufort, who told court that the young killer will hopefully turn his life around.

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At several points during the sentencing hearing, Jasey made clear her anger.

Outside court, Jasey portrayed her slain son as the kind of guy who’d give you the shirt off his back, who was always quick to help friends and family.

Labelle was raised in a U.S. military family in Texas and aspired to be a pilot, but when the only father he knew — his stepdad — died, he started to lose his way. He went from full-on sports and good grades to trouble no good mother could handle. “That’s when I lost my son to the street, when he lost the only dad he every knew,” Jasey said.

Labelle was sent to live in Ottawa as a teenager with his grandmother. He graduated from Rideau High but turned, at times, to a criminal lifestyle.

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An agreed statement of facts filed in court stated that Lamarre and Labelle were involved in a fight at the Ottawa-Carleton Detention Centre months before the killing. It was Labelle who threw the first punch before guards intervened. Both Lamarre and Labelle declined to file charges regarding the 2016 jail fight.

Lamarre was credited for time served in custody while awaiting trial, so his actual sentence is nine years minus 1,045 days.